Constance Hauman Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Soprano Constance Hauman

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

Soprano Constance Hauman, a native of Toledo, Ohio, studied music and political science at Northwestern University and is an alumna of the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

In 1986, she sang Ariel in the Des Moines world premiere of Lee Hoiby’s opera The Tempest, and ten years later she repeated the role in her Dallas Opera debut. In 1989, she came to international prominence as Cunegonde in Bernstein’s Candide, in a complete concert performance with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer at the Barbican Centre.

In 1990, she made her New York debut singing “Glitter and Be Gay” at a Bernstein memorial tribute. She has given recitals in Los Angeles and New York of songs by refugee composers from Nazi Germany and Austria and has appeared in a program entitled Kurt Weill’s Berlin.

She has appeared and recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Lyric Opera; Chicago Symphony; San Francisco Symphony; London Symphony; New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Dallas Opera, Washington National Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Miami Opera, Toledo Opera, Spoleto Festival Charleston S.C.; Canadian Opera; English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, London Sinfonietta; Opéra de Nice, Opéra de Marseille, Opéra de Tours, Opéra de Nantes, Opéra de St-Étienne, Opéra du Rhin, Opéra de Montpellier, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra Comique, Opéra National de Paris; Opera de Roma, Teatro Communale Florence; Spoleto Festival; Spanga Festival Holland; Japan Philharmonic; Royal Danish Radio Orchestra; Hong Kong Festival; Orquesta di Lisboa, Portugal; VARA Radio Orchestra, Amsterdam.

Hauman is a Richard Tucker Award winner, and a 2008 recipient of an Alumni Merit Award from Northwestern University.

In July of 1997, Constance Hauman was back in the Chicago area briefly, and she graciously took time to sit down with me for a conversation. Mixed with laughter and sadness, she related a few of her experiences in detail, and put them into perspective.

Here is what was said that afternoon . . . . .

Bruce Duffie:   Since we’re talking about hours and sleeping, is it hard for you to go between time-zones and be jet-lagged all the time, or at least some of the time?

Constance Hauman:   [Laughs] Actually, I’ve gotten very good at it because I lived in Paris for seven years. I was working a lot in Europe, and I still do. It just depends on the season, but now I’m more based in California and New York, so I’m always going back and forth between those three hours. The main thing I find is to exercise the minute you get to a new country. That helps to shock your body to the sunlight, and just get everything stimulated. I usually can get over jet-lag in one day, which is why I’m good at the last minute. I have a history of a lot of last-minute jump-ins for people because I can somehow just switch my body.

BD:   Is it rewarding to jump in for someone?

Hauman:   Yes, it’s exciting. I’ve had a couple of major ones where I’ve been really lucky. I call it ‘walking on the moon!’ It’s such an amazing experience that I have felt like maybe this is how the astronauts felt when they went to the moon. When they came back, they couldn’t even discuss it with anybody because it was so amazing. They felt like they were forever changed, or transformed, and it was very difficult to go about the mundane details in life. The major one was the production of Lulu. Then I had an extraordinary experience in December of 1989 when June Anderson canceled one performance of the Candide that Leonard Bernstein conducted for the first time in his life. It was with the London Symphony Orchestra, and it’s on Deutsche Grammophon CD and video, with Anderson, Christa Ludwig, Nicolai Gedda, and Jerry Hadley.

BD:   It’s too bad you didn’t also get the recording.
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Hauman:   No, I didn’t expect to, but I have a wonderful video of it that Lenny made sure I had of my night. I had to learn the whole part in a day. I knew the aria, but I didn’t know the whole role, and I had to learn it in a day. It was an incredible moment because a lot of people were there who didn’t want me to have this chance. They thought it was impossible for someone to go on, and literally not only have just a moment’s notice, but I had never done the role before.

BD:   I would have thought they would have found someone who had at least sung through the part.

Hauman:   They did! They found a couple of people, but Lenny liked to gamble. It was extraordinary in that I had only been singing professionally for three years. I had done The Tales of Hoffmann with the Canadian Opera and Hadley, and he asked me if I had you ever done Cunegonde in Candide. Of course I knew the aria ‘Glitter and be Gay,’ and he told me that Bernstein was doing this big project, and that I would really be great as Cunegonde. I said, “Yes, but how is Leonard Bernstein going to ever hear me?” A few months later, I went to see a psychic in New York who had since become a very dear friend, and I thought for sure he was reading my mind. I sat down and he said, “You’re going to have this amazing experience, a moment of destiny with a conductor like Bernstein in a city like London, and there’s nothing you can do to prepare for it.” Well, Jerry had told me the project was in London, and it was Leonard Bernstein, so I thought that he was reading my mind. Another six or seven months go by, and I get this call from one of Lenny’s producers. They just wanted to hear me sing, as I was on a short list for possible Cunegonde. It was not suggested to him by Jerry. It had come through someone else, and I thought it was a weird coincidence. So, I sang for them, and they were very happy with it. They wanted me to make a video tape for Bernstein, but I was on my way to my first European job. I was leaving a week later to do William Tell at the Théâtre Champs-Élysées, Paris.

BD:   To sing Mathilde?

Hauman:   No, it was to sing Jemmy with José van Dam, Lella Cuberli, and Gregory Kunde, with Paolo Olmi conducting. I was so excited. They arranged for me to make a video in Paris, and I thought it was really awful. I called my agent, and I was crying. I said that I did not want Leonard Bernstein to see it. I was very upset because I felt it looked really amateurish. So, another two or three months go by...

BD:   In the meantime, you’re fulfilling other contracts? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at left, see my interviews with Lukas Foss, Robert Beaser, and Gerard Schwarz.]

Hauman:   I’m fulfilling other contracts, and ironically was not going to have any work in November and December of 1989. This was in January of 1989, so I said to my agent, “This sounds really wacky, but unless it’s a great job, I don’t want to take anything in November and December 1989.” He said he would remind me that I had said this, but fortunately he’s one of those people who wants to make sure his clients are still singing when they’re 65. That’s why I stayed with him for ten years. So, anyway, in June of 1989, June Anderson was cast, and I thought I was so foolish to believe this psychic. I went to see him again, and he said, “I just keep seeing this thing. It’s like you’re in your coat, and a Leonard Bernstein-like conductor is embracing you, and it’s like you’re saving the day. But no work came up, and I went to Paris because I was studying French. I was then engaged to my first husband, and I decided I was going to surprise him. He was singing in Brussels, and I went to visit him. He always was very upset with how much luggage I took with me, so I surprised him by taking nothing with me, absolutely nothing but a toothbrush. I arrived in the morning when he had a performance, and had to get to the theater. He said, “You’ve got to help me out. I have this urgent message to call the London Symphony Orchestra,” so I said I’d do it for him. Something was wrong with their phones that day, and I ran into another colleague of mine. I started talking to her, and at the intermission I thought, “Oh, God, he’s going to kill me... I never made that phone call!” So I went out into the Plaza in front of the opera house, and I called the London Symphony Orchestra, saying that I was calling on his behalf. They said that they didn’t really want to talk to him, but were trying to find Constance Hauman! I said, “Well, this is she!” They continued, “Oh, good God, we’ve been trying to call you for two days. Leonard Bernstein wants you here tonight! June Anderson can’t sing this dress rehearsal,” and I thought I was going to faint. I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke.

BD:   [A bit confused] Why did they try to get to you through your boyfriend?

Hauman:   They couldn’t find me.

BD:   Even through your agent???

Hauman:   My agent said to call me in Paris, and I was not there. So when they called back, the agent said that maybe she’s gone to see her fiancé because he’s singing in Brussels. So, they decided to call him to find out where I was. I remember the date clearly. It was December 10th, and the actual concerts were December 12th and 13th, and the one on the 13th was for the Emperor of Japan and other royalty. So I went running back to the theater. My fiancé thought someone had died from the look on my face, and I said, “I’m sorry I can’t stay! I have to go!” I didn’t even know Candide! What am going to do??? Someone in the opera house knew someone in the chorus, an American girl, who had sung in Candide at City Opera. So I jump in a taxi and go to her apartment. I was a total stranger, but she lends me her score. I jump on a plane, but I have no clothes. I really only have a toothbrush. I’ve nothing. When I fly into London there are all these problems getting into the country because I had no papers to prove if I was really going to work. So that took forever. I didn’t get to the hotel until very late, and I was studying the score like crazy. When I got there, I had messages with a long list of instructions. I was to be at the rehearsal the next morning at 11am, and then they said they assumed that I knew that this is the Scottish Opera version of Candide! Of course I didn’t even know there were two versions! I thought that I’d blown it. I was up all night. I never went to sleep. I thought I’d just learn what I can. They called me at 9 o’clock, and tell me I had to be at the theater at 10am, because Bernstein’s very nervous and upset because everyone’s sick, and he wants me there at 10. I get a taxi, and we’re zooming through the streets of London. I get to the Barbican, and go running into the theater. It was exactly the image the psychic told me! I was scolded for being late, but I wasn’t even supposed to be there! I walked in, and I have on my coat, and Leonard Bernstein jumps off the podium and embraces me in my coat. The psychic had said he kept getting this image of a Bernstein-like conductor, and it was Bernstein! Then there’s Jerry Hadley sitting there with his mouth hanging open because he had mentioned me in passing a year and a half before. I told Lenny that I had to go the bathroom something awful. I was so nervous, and Bernstein looked at the panic on my face. It’s not what you’d want to say to a great conductor. It’s not too eloquent, but he said, “You don’t have to pee, kid! Just sing!” He turned his back to me, and started the opening to ‘Glitter and Be Gay’. So I sang it for him in my coat, and by the grace of God and my guardian angels, I sang like I’ve never sung it my life. It was amazing. Then I had to tell him the horrible truth, which was that I didn’t know the rest of the score. He said, “Good, God! Throw her in a room with somebody!” They kept me in a room for eight hours. Then June showed up and did the dress rehearsal through ‘Glitter and Be Gay’, and then she fainted. They took her away, and I had to go on. This was the dress rehearsal, and at intermission I was told by many people that I should just go home. But I took my destiny in my hands. I knew I shouldn’t just go home. I knew I was supposed to be there. I just needed a good-night’s sleep. The assistant I’d been with all day told Lenny, “She’s learned it. She just needs to sleep.” I don’t know where I got the chutzpuh [extreme self-confidence or audacity], but I went up to Lenny’s dressing room, and knocked on the door. He told me to come in, and I just burst into tears. I said, “I know you think I can’t do it,” but he said, “Why do you think I think you can’t do it? Everyone else thinks you can’t do it, but I see that look in your eye, and I know you can do it,” so I said, “I know I can do it!” I had waited my whole life for this. I used to dance to West Side Story in my basement in Toledo, Ohio. I know what I’m supposed to be doing. I told him the story of the psychic. He loved the drama, but he also was a very metaphysical spirit. Then he patted me on the cheek and he said, “Don’t fuck up!” [Much laughter] I said I wouldn’t, and I burst into tears. He walked out, and the next morning there were a lot of people who were still convinced he should use someone who had done it at Scottish Opera. The next day I told them why I’d been wearing the same clothes for two days, so they whisked me off to a dress-hire shop. They chose a dress, and they did all my make-up for TV. I got to the theater, and at 7:25 pm June showed up. So, I sat back stage and watched the first performance, which was recorded, and is the video that’s out there to buy. Then I realized I was really going to go on the next day. I just felt it because everyone was sick, and I just knew how much adrenaline it was taking her to get through the performance while she was sick. I thought that I’ve got to go and save myself by sleeping. So, I sneaked away about ten minutes before I was supposed to officially leave. I couldn’t get a taxi, so I walked a few blocks away finally waved down a taxi. It turned out to be the same guy who had driven me to the rehearsal the day before! He’d been driving cabs for twenty-five years in London, and that had never happened. I slept for fifteen hours. They called me at 3 pm and said I was going on for sure. The royalty was going to be there. Jerry Hadley was sick, and they had flown this American tenor in from Berlin named Donald George. He had sung Candide in German, but never in English. His plane was canceled four times, but he finally arrived at 7:25 pm for a 7:45 pm curtain, and had never met Bernstein.

BD:   Sounds like a real comedy of errors.

Hauman:   Yes. It was the final thing that Berstein loved and thrived on, and that night it was very funny because there were no mistakes! It was pretty amazing. The only thing wrong was in Candide’s lament, instead of asking ‘What is war?’ he sang ‘What is Krieg?!’ I later heard that Lenny used to watch that all the time and just crack up because it was the only mistake of the evening, but a very funny one. So that was one of those ‘walking on the moon’ things, where for weeks and months I never felt the same.

* * * * *

BD:   Now, when you get to another place where you’re actually singing the rehearsals, and you know the part, and everything is going fine, is that almost disappointing after this experience?

Hauman:   Actually, for about two years after that Candide experience, I had a tough time. Everything was disappointing because it was just so phenomenal that it even happened. When Lenny gave me that tape, at least I have that because it was a great moment. But now I can say that same idea about Lulu. There was such a gift. I felt the same way on an opening night, and then on closing night too. I thought that if I never do anything else again in my life, I’ve really done something special. We rehearsed for six or seven weeks, which just doesn’t happen anymore in this business, and we had the orchestra for a month, which also never happens. We were in a rehearsal space in the Queen of Denmark’s riding stables at Christiansborg Castle. They turned this eighteenth century stable into a fantastic performing space, and the whole energy behind this project was so amazing. Ever since I went to Northwestern, I’ve always had this thing about Berg, and I always wanted to do Lulu.

BD:   Have you sung other things like the Altenburg Lieder?
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Hauman:   No. I’ve sung lots of Strauss, but never any Berg until now. But I listened to it, and loved it. Who wouldn’t want to have a shot at Lulu? It’s the ultimate part, especially as an acting role. It’s phenomenal. So not only was it just great to actually have the opportunity to do Lulu, but the energy behind this particular production was special because it was a special event. It was produced by the Danish Radio Orchestra and the Grønnegårds Theatre, and the European Capital of Culture Committee, because Copenhagen had been chosen as the Cultural Capital of Europe for 1996. Then, the Queen of Denmark loves the opera Lulu, which in itself is quite extraordinary to have any kind of world leader or aristocracy that even knows who Alban Berg is! [Both laugh] So, there was a lot of magic around it because it was just kind of a wacky thing to put a lot of money and energy into only ten performances. I was amazed when I walked into these stables and saw what they were going to do! All we saw for weeks was just the rake of the stage that we would work on. About five weeks later they started building the actual theater with about 980 seats for the audience. Then the problem was that there was no way there would be a real pit. They had tried for months to figure out how they could put the orchestra in cages hanging from the ceiling, and of course that wasn’t going to work. [Laughs] It was way too costly. Then they were going to dig a pit, but underneath the turf floor of the stables were the original ruins of the fifteenth-century castle. So they couldn’t do that. What happened was that the audience was at a rake that went like a very steep incline. Then the stage went the other way. It was like a big V, and in the middle was the orchestra. I freaked out. When they sing Lulu for the first time, most people have at least a typical stage. It’s already such an incredibly difficult role, and then there’s all the myth behind it being a vocally taxing part. All of a sudden, here’s the orchestra that’s usually under the stage, and it’s all exposed! We were going to sing over a totally exposed orchestra, so that’s something to keep in mind when listening to the recording. That’s also what’s impressive about the recording. We were not miked! It was the acoustic they created for the theater, just for the riding stables and just for those performances. There’s only one place where there was a mike used, and it was absolutely for a theatrical purpose. This was the long speech in the second act, which is usually cut, when Lulu explains how she escaped. We decided to make it kind of surreal, because it is such a surreal moment anyway. We used a microphone, and it worked very well. Visually, it was stunning, and one of the reasons this recording is really interesting, and can hold its own among the Lulu recordings, is that it was a very visually exciting production, and you can absolutely hear the drama, and the way it’s so brilliantly written to catapult to the end. You really get it. It’s not like being done in a studio where it’s cut and dried. It’s the real thing! It’s the performance!

BD:   The recording is an amalgamation of the ten performances? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interview with Monte Jaffe.]

Hauman:   Yes, but I think most of it is taken from the opening night, which we were all very proud of. It was amazing that on opening night we could be that precise and cool. It just blows my mind when I think that they’re voting at the National Education Association to cut the money. Budgets are in shambles, and classical record labels are dumping conductors right and left. Everyone said that an opera like Lulu wouldn’t sell, especially under these conditions, and it’s now doing well.

BD:   I’m glad it’s making its way.

Hauman:   It’s such a hopeful little beam of light in the midst of all this naysay about the future of classical music. Maybe it was just luck because it happened in Denmark, and not here in the U.S. Denmark is a very extraordinary country.

BD:   Why?

Hauman:   Because of the people and a lot of kids. This thing became an event. There was excitement about it. If you missed it, you were really going to miss something, so kids were camping out before the last two performances to get tickets, because they were selling out a thousand seats a night.

BD:   Remarkable!

Hauman:   There was one scene at the end of the first act, when Lulu makes Dr. Schön finally marry her by making him write the letter to his fiancé. The director had a very brilliant vision, which I finally got the guts to do, which was have him write the letter on my body. I come out naked to say this is the stationery. He says he cannot write it, so it has a lot more doom in that line by me standing there, stark naked, with that pen saying he must write this letter to her right now! At the end, when Lulu leaves to go to confront his so-called fiancée, the fate of Schön was changed because I was brazen enough to walk out on the stage naked and have the fiancé read, “Ich liebe Lulu!” [I love Lulu] right there on her body. There were a lot of kids at the first rehearsal where I did that. Later, I was walking around in Copenhagen and no one recognized me because I had that special wig which makes me look very different, and there were all these girls walking around with black writing on their arms and their legs which said, “Ich liebe Lulu!” I thought that’s so cool! This was really exciting. If you can get kids talking about Alban Berg, and talking about Lulu, it is something! So that was a really fulfilling moment, and you just wish you could have that all the time with opera.

BD:   Maybe this is the way to get more of an audience.

Hauman:   It might be. This production is going to come to BAM [Brooklyn Academy of Music], and it will travel a bit on tour.

BD:   With you?

Hauman:   Yes, but not until end of 1999/2000. Everything’s scheduled so far in advance, we all have to wait!

BD:   [Trying to hide any signs of eagerness] You’ll be naked again?

Hauman:   [Laughs] Yes, if I can keep myself in shape! There’s nothing like knowing you’re going to be naked for ten minutes in front of a thousand people that make you not have that cookie today, or that second plate of pasta!

BD:   [Wistfully] I can see it now... they’ll bill it as The Naked Lulu!

Hauman:   Right. That’s why the cover of the CD looks that way with that scene [shown above-right]. The Queen of Denmark came...

BD:   Did she approve of the whole thing?

Hauman:   Oh, she loved it! She was moved to tears at the end, which was our goal. I hate when people think of Lulu as a monster. I really wanted them to really be just speechless and destroyed by her doom. It’s wrong to judge the character, because Berg doesn’t make a judgment about her. She’s really a victim of a lot of things. You should just be absolutely destroyed by that last scene. Usually you don’t see Lulu murdered by Jack the Ripper, and in this production it was done in an abandoned car. She goes into the car to turn tricks, and Jack the Ripper pulls out a knife. She tries to climb into the front seat, and she can’t get out. He slit my throat with my face pressed against the wind shield. Then Countess Geschwitz sings that last haunting, fabulous line, trying desperately to get in the car. But the doors are locked, and it ends on that chord, and the lights went out. That was a definite ‘walking on the moon’ experience! When the production was over, I couldn’t deal with anything or anybody. I couldn’t even deal with myself, so I went to India. Actually, I basically just took a trip around the world to get relief from a long year of study. I felt like someone feels when they prepare for the Olympics, because that’s all I thought about. I wanted to be in the rehearsal situation as if I’d done Lulu as many times as my colleagues. I had to be on the same level where the music has to feel like second nature, so I would be able to express what I want to express about the character and the text. I studied that opera like I’ve never studied anything in my life. In fact, if I’d have studied that hard at Northwestern, I would have been a Rhodes Scholar! [Both laugh] I didn’t just want to sing it. I wanted to be able to become the part, and you can’t do it with that music unless it’s second-nature.

BD:   I trust you don’t want to be known only as Lulu.

Hauman:   No, I don’t, and there’s the other problem. There comes the conundrum. You do a production like that, and all of a sudden, everyone wonders if I have wrecked my voice... which I didn’t, because I’m singing better than ever! I didn’t realize it until I opened the score, but it’s really very high. It’s like a big voiced Zerbinetta part. The people who have sung it in the past were not that voice-type. They were more lyric voices. Also, the orchestra is heavy in certain places, and in other places it’s quite light, like chamber music, which can only be achieved when you have the luxury of rehearsing that much.

BD:   Berg really knew what he was doing?

Hauman:   Totally. It sounds so corny, but I think this is the most perfectly put-together piece of theater I’ve ever come across. He was such a great dramatist, as great as Puccini or Verdi... maybe more. He knew Frank Wedekind so well. People say Berg only took a fifth of all that Wedekind wrote.

Originally conceived as a single play, the two "Lulu" plays, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box, 1904), tell a continuous story of a sexually enticing young dancer who rises in society through her relationships with wealthy men but who later falls into poverty and prostitution. The frank depiction of sexuality and violence in these plays, including lesbianism and an encounter with Jack the Ripper (a role that Wedekind played in the original production), pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable on the stage at the time.

What Berg did was make the rest of those words into the most brilliant music that describes it all, and describes who she is. It describes her child-like qualities, and her androgenous quality. That’s why in places it’s so very high. It’s to capture her youth and her free spirit. That’s why the coloratura is in there, because she is such a free-spirit. That’s why everyone wants to have her, and crush her. People think she kills everybody, but she doesn’t. She kills one person, the man she loves for her own survival. Everybody else just ends up destroying themselves because of what they see. She has the ability to become so malleable. She becomes whatever the man wants from her. She has no shame, but they’re full of shame, and they end up destroying themselves. She doesn’t really destroy anybody except when she kills Dr. Schön. In the original play, Schön wants her to kill herself, and then Wedekind changed it because Lulu was censored. The character was based on four real child prostitutes that he studied for about two years, and wrote about in journals. So the first play really gave me a lot of keys, because Wedekind was very rambling. He also changed his style when he re-wrote it, but his original gut reaction to who this character was is in the first play, before he censored himself. I felt that, and that’s why I felt it was important to really read it. It’s a huge piece of theater on its own, and the music is just so brilliant, really brilliant.
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BD: I’m glad you’ve been involved in it.

Hauman: Me too!

* * * * *

BD:   Tell me about your new project about the composers who had to flee the Nazis.

Hauman:   That’s a project of my own, in that I created it along with a man in Los Angeles, named Cornelius Schnauber, who actually helped me study and perfect my German for the Lulu. He’s a historian based in Los Angeles, who specializes in composers, artists, movie directors, and movie actors, who fled Nazi-occupied Europe. The Los Angeles County Museum did a really interesting exhibit called Exiles and Emigres, the Flight of Artists from Hitler. They asked me to do a recital of composers who had fled, and I’d had an idea for several years of doing a recital where I combined the art exhibit with the music. I ended up choosing the music based on looking at the catalogue of the whole exhibit. I chose about thirty-two of their seventy-odd paintings, and then with Dr. Schnauber, we went through archival footage, and home-movies, and documentary footage from the composers’ families... things like Schoenberg at home playing ping-pong and tennis. Another example is Walter Jurmann, who wrote an enormous amount of music during his life. People gasp and ask, “He wrote that???” He wrote for everyone including Deanna Durbin and Judy Garland. So we took film clips of the actual movies that these exiles composed for.

BD:   So, you brought it all together?

Hauman:   Yes. My cousin, who is a film director, was a big help because I’d never made a film before. We called it a film, but it really is a collage for each set of songs. The narration was written by Dr. Schnauber. It’s like a culture-show. Maybe that is where all the political science in the history courses at Northwestern comes in, because I do have a love for that. It’s hard to look at the music from a certain period and not consider everything else that was going on, too. The concert ended up incorporating works by Frederick Hollaender, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Kurt Weill, Hans Eisler, Walter Jurmann, Emmerich Kálmán, Robert Stoltz and Ralph Benatzky, and at that we had to cut so many. There may be a lot of people my age who don’t know that is what really pushed Hollywood to what it has become now. Yes, a lot of Eastern Europe’s great talent went to New York, but those who went to Hollywood also included Thomas Mann, Otto Klemperer, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Bertolt Brecht. It’s just so amazing! That’s where the rich musical community was, and they all had to do this schizophrenic thing of developing American movie music, but it was also Viennese and Eastern European. That was really the roots, and my show will help get an understanding of the dichotomy through the images, and how lucky they were that they left when they did. They had the luxury of having drinks at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studio pool. I do an aria called ‘Rosetta’s Lied’ by Erich Zeisl. He was a composer who really didn’t get his day because he never really quite made it in film music, and there wasn’t anywhere else for him to go. So you get a gamut of the different levels of success. It was a really exciting thing, because I had this vision in my head, and I didn’t know if I could pull it off. We didn’t have a lot of money, nor a lot of time, and we just decided to do it. It was really fulfilling, and next year, to my total surprise, we are going to incorporate several performances of it.

BD:   I’m glad things are working for you. It’s sounds like you’re enthusiastic about each special project that you do.

Hauman:   Yes, but there are so many frustrating things. Maybe because I’m older, people ask me to do a recital and give a masterclass. I get anxious at the thought of giving people advice, because everyone’s path is so individual. It sounds so cliché, but it’s so true. Everyone’s path is different. Some people have careers where it’s very simple for them. They do the Met program or the Chicago Lyric program, and then they go into a big company, and it’s all on track. Other people are all over the place, like me. Some people go to Europe and immediately get a Fest contract, and do ten years of that. Now, of course, there are the doom-sayers who say that classical music is finished, and it’s not going to go into the next century.

BD:   Yes, but they’ve been saying that for a hundred years.

Hauman:   I just look at the myriad recordings, and know this is a beam of light. This is hope.

BD:   Is hope the real point of classical music?

Hauman:   Yes, absolutely it is. Some say the technology is going to take over, and there will be no need for live music, but that’s so not true. I hate when people say that. Maybe because I’m older and noticing it, but it seems like there’s a real increase in spiritual hunger. People want real stuff, and need to experience real emotion, and live music is the only thing that can do that. Hearing it on a recording is not the same. The real thing is the exchange of energy, being there in the presence of the moment and experiencing it. Recordings are exciting, but not like really being there.

BD: I wish you continued success.

Hauman: I think the universe is giving me enough time. I had a lot of projects slated for 1998 that have now been moved to 1999, or 2000, which is so weird when people talk about it. It’s funny... every year feels like a new beginning. It’s amazing.

BD:   Thank you for taking the time on a cross-country tour to stop in Chicago and talk with me.

Hauman:   I’m very happy to be here. I have fond memories of Chicago.

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This conversation was recorded in Chicago on July 14, 1997. Portions were broadcast on WNIB the following December. This transcription was made in 2024, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.